Minister

IDS confirms IT IS WORKFARE!

Posted by soiniciulacht on February 17, 2013
Posted in: benefits, employment, Factual, Government, human rights, Minister, news, politics, sleaze, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

On the Andrew Marr show on BBC  IDS was speaking about the Poundland case in which Cait Reilly was forced to work in a Poundland store for two weeks and thus had to abandon a voluntary position at a museum. During the interview he said:

‘She was paid jobseeker’s allowance by the taxpayer to do this.’

thereby confirming what most had known all along that, far from being an individually-tailored training scheme, the Work programme is nothing other than Workfare in which the benificiaries are the companies who get a free workforce at taxpayer expense.

Esther McVey’s Evidence to the Select Committee Jan 21 2013 – questions arising

Posted by soiniciulacht on February 4, 2013
Posted in: accountability, benefits, Comment, democracy, equality, Factual, health, Legislation, Minister, news, politics, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

House of COMMONS

Oral EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE the

Work and Pensions Committee

Personal Independence Payment

MONDAY 21 January 2013

Esther McVey MP, Simon Dawson and Dr Bill Gunnyeon

Esther McVey: We have always said that [PIP] is a personalised benefit. Everybody will be assessed-not all then on a facetoface, as we have said, but everybody will be assessed and it is personalised. What we have also said about this benefit is that it is not about the condition; it is about how that condition affects the individual, and those are key to this benefit. It is how the barriers affect the individual, and how the barriers affect them having an independent life.

Q34 Sheila Gilmore: So the DWP will intend, when it sees people and keeps in touch with them, to help them find help and support. So that will be an integral part of what you are doing.

Esther McVey: When you are assessing people and you are meeting them for an hour, as these meetings would be, then you have an overview and you will engage in a conversation with that person and, yes, of course you will, in an hour’s conversation, be talking about different things within that-how best you can get support and help. Of course you do; anybody would do that.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmworpen/uc916/uc91601.htm

This answer could possibly be believable were it actually based on the facts on the ground.

The whole thrust of the debate around ‘welfare reform’ is based on the Biopsychosocial model:

The biopsychosocial model (abbreviated “BPS”) is a general model or approach that posits that biological, psychological (which entails thoughts, emotions, and behaviors), and social factors, all play a significant role in human functioning in the context of disease or illness. Indeed, health is best understood in terms of a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors rather than purely in biological terms.

The problems are largely that the social factors are being ignored.

How much help is it to assess somebody as being fit for work and thus to immediately stop their benefits on the basis that they would be more mobile through the use of a wheelchair or other appliance EVEN WHEN THEY DO NOT ACTUALLY HAVE THE WHEELCHAIR OR APPLIANCE. Surely any system fit for purpose would provide the necessary equipment and any relevant training and support PRIOR to stopping benefits?

The problems however do not stop there because the system most definitely is NOT personalised.

Say the DWP exhibit the first glimpse of humanity in years and made the change such that they provide the mythical wheelchair to two people one living in the centre of an urban area with good transport, local hospital and support services etc. They could well be more independent than before and a reduction/ removal of benefits may be justifiable.

The second person in our example lives in a rural area, no public transport and the loss of benefits includes removal of MOTABILITY. Exactly how much ‘help’ have they received with their ‘personalised’ needs?

Q28 Jane Ellison: Could you confirm that 71% have never been reassessed?

Esther McVey: They are on a lifetime award. Our view on that is that some of them-50%-never had medical supporting evidence. What we are saying now is one of the positive things about PIP really is to look at a systematic review and, as we say, see how can we help, because our view is the very opposite way: if you have put these people on benefits for life, what are we doing as a society to help and enable those people? Yes, I appreciate some people’s conditions will not get better, and maybe some will get worse, but there is a percentage of people who will get better, and we have to be there for them in a very different way. How can we help them to progress, to take an active part in society?

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LIFETIME AWARD – THERE ARE INDEFINITE AWARDS (this is one of IDSs most oft-repeated untruths) and these are subject to review whenever the DWP decides and thus there is no need to change the previous legislation.

We received a brief from the MS Society, who are very exercised by this change. They are incredibly exercised by this change. On Saturday I saw someone with MS, who was attending the same meeting as me. The disabled parking was 30 or 40 metres from the door. He got out of his car and walked with his walking stick. He stopped more than twice and was absolutely exhausted by the time he got into the meeting. By the criteria here, that means he would only get 10 points, because he can move more than 20 metres. Actually, he probably managed 50 metres and he could probably do more than 50 metres, but from his first step-

Dr Gunnyeon: Chair, can I clarify? The issue of safely, reliably, repeatedly and in a timely manner would become highly relevant here. You have identified the fact that not only did it take a while, but there is an issue about his being exhausted at the end of it. That is why that ability is so important throughout all of the descriptors. Somebody may be able to do it, but if they are then not able to do anything for the next few hours or are exhausted the next day, clearly they are not then considered able to do it and they would actually get the points.

How will an ATOS/CAPITA interviewer be able to judge this in a 30 minute tick-box exercise in an office?

The next statement however is absolutely kafkaesque.

Q64 Chair: Where does the measure start? If he could walk the first 30 metres comfortably and then struggle, would that mean he ends up not getting the enhanced rate? Is that right?

Dr Gunnyeon: If that is correct and there are no other factors around the safely, reliably and repeatedly, then yes, that would then be the case.

But both have to travel the same distance, both have the same reaction in terms of exhaustion and other symptoms the only time the second person would be in a different position medically, socially and in terms of independence would be if they were constantly require to travel between 20 and 30 metres; an obvious nonsense in the real world.

These are questions based on the uncorrected transcript and Ms McVey comes from the John Prescott school of English so it is often difficult to decipher what it is she is actually saying but the DWP incompetence remains as it has been for several years.

This is the central lie behind the attacks on the poor

Posted by soiniciulacht on January 23, 2013
Posted in: accountability, budget, Comment, democracy, Factual, Minister, politics, sleaze, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , .

What is the meaning of the phrase ‘largest deficit in history’? Try watching this video from around 2:25 on for the answer.

 

McKinseys – Reshaping the System Part 2

Posted by soiniciulacht on January 15, 2013
Posted in: accountability, benefits, Factual, freedom of speech, Government, health, Legislation, Minister, news, nhs, politics, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Again the entire document is reproduced in full. Annotations have been made where something of interest was noted. Anyone interested in what McKinsey proposals could mean for patient charges at the point of use should go directly to slides 118 onwards.

As this document is very slipshod a fair amount of annotation has been made.

Some notes made during perusal of this document:

There is a recommendation for an acute GP Unit in Cornwall, the county that has recently had one GP to cover all out of hours provision supplied by a private company! (Slide 10)

Warren Farm is not open overnight (Slide 13)

Up front costs are required for example to satisfy the recommendation that all nurses and specialist carrying out home visits be supplied with GPS/Tablets/PC – no costs appear to be assigned to this suggestion.

The sources quoted on many slides appear refer to results obtained from ‘one English hospital or ‘one English PCT’

Many sources quoted go back as far as 2001.

One would hope that reducing the amount of drugs supplied to patients doesn’t include pain medication!

The argument that there is an inverse relationship between the size of the purchasing costs and the possible savings from reduced drug prices would seem to argue against the McKinsey model being followed in England! (Slide 69)

In addition to using data from 2001 they also appear to be using US data as a proxy for the NHS (Slide 76)

Slide 73 indicates a potential saving that doesn’t take account of savings already achieved? Slide 81 then repeats the same savings figure without the caveat?

Whether a slide is marked ‘indicative’ or ‘illustrative’ appears to be arbitrary throughout.

Slide 112 appears to have the spin inbuilt – giving a gross figure that ignores a known figure of already achieved savings.

NOTE: Trawling through this bull for hours now some errors may have been made that do not flow from the document. Tough; they should have published them for publid discussion!

Reshaping the System Part 2

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Reshaping the System: Implications for Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Services of the 2010 Spending Review

Posted by soiniciulacht on January 14, 2013
Posted in: democracy, Factual, freedom of speech, Government, health, Legislation, Minister, news, politics, public sector pay, sleaze, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The following document is complete and unedited the only changes made by myself are to add some highlighting to points that I found of interest.

The paragraphs highlighted are:

Few healthcare organisations have achieved this level of improvement across all parts of the system simultaneously.

- page28

It is unclear whether the identified productivity and quality improvement opportunities will suffice to close future funding gaps. If not, then there are other actions which can be taken to reduce required funding in future, which do not fundamentally improve (and may worsen) quality and the system’s allocative and technical efficiency. These include: co-payment by the service user; controlling staff wage inflation; and restricting access to services. These are discussed in more detail in section 6 of this document.

- page 28

Less hospital capacity will be needed, e.g., ~350 fewer hospital beds and ~30% fewer hospital outpatient appointments than were required in 2008/09.

- page 32

Overall, our very preliminary estimates are a net reduction of ~1,000 staff relative to 2008/09 levels – a reduction that is likely to be more than adequately covered by 2014/15 through natural attrition and retirement.

- page 33

It will therefore be vital to get together a group of leaders who will work together to champion the reforms, pioneer and support innovation, speed up decision making and ensure that actions across the system are coherent and aligned.

- page 34

A workforce pipeline and talent management process that is aligned to the strategy.

- page 35

We cannot afford to wait for innovation and clinical/ professional breakthroughs to trickle slowly through the system, or to have organisations attempting to ‘reinvent the wheel’. We therefore plan to assess opportunities via ‘test-bed’ pilots that can be rapidly rolled out to other Trusts once completed.Finally, we must not wait until reconfiguration of services is complete before turning attention to workforce issues. We will need to make proactive and immediate changes to our workforce pipeline and deployment of staff to reflect the future delivery of services – for instance by influencing graduates to apply for roles that will be of growing importance in future, and by developing training that reflects new roles and/or helps individuals to switch between roles.

- page 35

We need to communicate the case for change and the vision for future services effectively, and involve stakeholders in making change happen. We will need to begin this process soon, to engage communities, patients, clients9, professionals and all staff in shaping and supporting system-wide changes – such as individual budgets and home-based care – before implementation, as well as effectively engaging opinion formers (e.g., the press, unions) in the rationale and direction of change. We will also need to establish a robust clinical and professional rationale for changes very clearly early on, if we are to successfully engage health and social care professionals themselves in driving the changes.Finally, we must think carefully about who tells this ‘change story’ to partners,

- page 36

If more than this £0.6 billion is needed, a further ~£0.1-0.3 billion could be achieved through the introduction of co-payment and further savings through a freeze in staff pay costs. Any further savings will involve reducing quality by restricting access to services – risking the integrity of the health and social care system.

- page 39

Experience in private and public healthcare and non-healthcare sectors in the UK and other countries suggests that an organisation can typically deliver 2-5% improvement p.a. – but that within public healthcare, it is difficult for the payor/ commissioner to deliver more than 2.5-3.0% p.a.

- page 42

there may be additional ways to reduce required funding without damaging quality by making regionally- and/or nationally-led changes to income and costs. Such changes would require decisions by political leaders and challenge the principle that the NHS is free at the point of delivery. However, the content suggests that such options may need to be considered.

- page 44

In addition to this, other co-payments such as are used in other European countries – or beyond that – could potentially be introduced, if there was need and will. For example, people could pay for attending A&E (as in Republic of Ireland); for access to primary care (as in Germany); for inpatient stays (as in France).

- page 45

If further reductions in funding were to prove necessary, beyond the identified improvements in productivity and quality, and the changes to income and staff costs described above, then quality of care and the integrity of the HSC system would be put at serious risk. We would need to restrict access to services and treatments, for example by:■ Enforcing tougher eligibility criteria for treatments, e.g., hip replacements only for the over 80s, social care packages only for the acutely-ill, asking people who need it to buy their own equipment■ Introducing means-testing, i.e., making people pay for care if they can afford to■ Denying treatments that are high cost per Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY), e.g., high-cost end of life treatments such as chemotherapy■ Reducing funding of services seen as ‘non-core’, e.g., voluntary and community groups – which currently substitute and/or prevent need for statutory care.

- page 46

While we may not capture the full savings potential until necessary legislation and consultation is enacted (e.g., for reconfiguration), we can start to develop the new ways of working and protocols that will underpin future savings, and can start to make some structural changes if we have the discipline to not fill up freed-up capacity. This will be critically important where we need to test and pilot changes.

- page 48

RESHAPING THE SYSTEM

This document is supported by 3 appendices which are on other pages on this blog.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

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Northern Ireland health – The McKinsey Report

Posted by soiniciulacht on January 14, 2013
Posted in: accountability, democracy, Factual, Government, health, Legislation, Minister, news, nhs, politics, public sector pay, sleaze, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Not sure if they actually meant to post these documents but, as a public service I will provide over the next few pages the documents shown in the image below:

Links to McKinsey Report Files and Appendices

Image showing links to McKinsey Report Files and Appendices

Lord Fraud puts the squeeze on

Posted by soiniciulacht on January 11, 2013
Posted in: benefits, equality, Factual, Government, Minister, news, politics, sleaze, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

From Hansard of 10 Jan 2012:

The Question

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the noble Lord’s right honourable friends in the other place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, are waging war on so-called shirkers, in part by cutting their benefits. However, as my noble friend has said, two-thirds of those benefit cuts are falling on women. If you take into account changes in pensions, pay and taxes, more than 80% of the cuts are falling on women who are bringing up children, caring for the elderly and holding down a part-time job at minimum wage. Does the Minister agree with his right honourable friends that apparently the face of a shirker is now that of a mother, a carer and a woman?

The Response

Lord Freud: My Lords, as regards the reduction, or potentially below-inflation increase, in benefits, a lot is happening in the economy in relative terms. Today’s article in the Financial Times is one of the best analyses of that that I have seen. I am sure that others have seen that article, which shows how squeezed people are in the middle and upper-middle tiers of income distribution. They have fallen right back to the level of earnings in 2002-03, while real incomes in the bottom 30% were 3% to 4% higher than they were. That is the context in which we are looking at the adjustments to the benefit levels.

Note that Lord Fraud was unable to mention the upper tiers of the income distribution being squeezed and the official DWP figures show that under any measure the lowest deciles are facing the biggest cuts in whatever terms you care to mention. It would also seem the blithering idiot has accepted Miliband’s ‘squeezed middle’ hypothesis so  overall not a very good attempt at dissembling.

How do Tories ‘protect the vulnerable’ when moderated by Lib Dem influence?

Posted by soiniciulacht on December 6, 2012
Posted in: benefits, budget, David Cameron, employment, equality, Factual, Government, health, Legislation, Minister, news, politics, public sector pay, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , .

This is how a Tory government and Lib Dem poodles ‘protect the vulnerable’ – note that children and those on ESA are not considered ‘vulnerable’:

Those working in the public services, who have seen their basic pay frozen, will now see it rise by an average of 1%.

A similar approach of a 1% rise should apply to those in receipt of benefits.

That’s fair and it will ensure that we have a welfare system that Britain can afford.

We will support the vulnerable.

So carer benefits and disability benefits, including disability elements of tax credits, will be increased in line with inflation and we’re extending support for Mortgage Interest for 2 more years.

But most working age benefits including Job Seekers Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support – will be uprated by 1% for the next three years.

We will also uprate elements of the Child Tax Credit and the Working Tax Credits by 1% for the next three years – although previously planned freezes will go ahead.

Local Housing Allowance rates, that are a central component of Housing Benefit, will be uprated in line with the existing policy next April and then we will cap increases at 1% in the two years after that.

For this measure, 30% of the savings will be used to exempt from the new cap those areas with the highest rent increases.

The earning disregards for Universal Credit will also be uprated by 1% for two years from April 2014.

Child benefit is currently frozen.

It too will now rise by 1% for two years from April 2014.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/as2012_statement.htm

How fast have benfits for the ‘arbeitscheu’ been rising?

The real value (that is, after allowing for price inflation) of JSA and its predecessors has not changed for at least 30 years. Yet over the same period, the real value of per-capita household
consumption in the UK has doubled. Put another way, relative to the average level of consumption, JSA is only worth half what it was 30 years ago. [ie in 1979 the reduction in value began - hmm who was elected that year..]
By contrast, over the previous 30 years (that is, from the foundation of the welfare state in 1948 up to 1978), JSA’s predecessor maintained its value relative to the average level of consumption.

http://www.poverty.org.uk/reports/unemployment.pdf

Lord Fraud Lying in the Press

Posted by soiniciulacht on July 29, 2012
Posted in: accountability, benefits, Government, Minister, politics, Tories, welfare reform. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

The coalition’s reforms will make the benefits system work better

We’re working towards a welfare state that gives support to vulnerable people but doesn’t abandon them to a life on benefits

Thursday 21 June 2012 16.30 BST

The government is not wedded to the WCA existing in a set form, so Professor Malcolm Harrington, an acknowledged expert in this field, is keeping it under continual review to ensure that we make this process work as well as it can for those who undergo an assessment. We have accepted all his recommended changes so far,

David Freud

I questioned this at the time rightly so it would seem.

In the second review, published in November 2011, Professor Harrington while satisfied that the department has taken the advice in his first review made further recommendations. The Government has endorsed Professor Harrington’s second review; have fully accepted the majority of its recommendations, and are conducting work to assess the feasibility and implications of the remaining recommendations.

DWP statistics

Released July 2012

 

Grayling has joined Fraud in lying in a Guardian Article

We’ve accepted every recommendation put to us by Professor Malcolm Harrington, the independent expert who has been reviewing the process for us